Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

WhenJumpScare is a personal, non-commercial project operated by two individuals based in Metz, France. In this policy, “we” means the operators responsible for the personal data used to run whenjumpscare.com. You can contact us at [email protected] or through our contact form.

2. Data we collect and why

• Accounts and sign-in: Google sign-in provides your name, email address, email verification status, profile image if available, and Google account identifier. We store account and session records, including provider tokens where supplied, session tokens, creation/expiry dates, IP address, and browser information. We use them to provide and secure your account. The legal basis is performance of the service you request and our legitimate interest in preventing abuse.
• Contributions: We store movie identifiers, timestamps, descriptions, severity, submission/edit dates, account links, pending edits, and moderation records. We use them to review and publish contributions and give contributors credit. Providing the contribution service is based on performance of the service you request; moderation and maintaining the published resource are based on our legitimate interests in reliable community content.
• Movie data requests: We store the requested movie, request date, browser information, and either an account identifier or a random browser identifier. Older records may contain an IP address because requests were previously identified that way. We use these records to count requests and prevent duplicates, based on our legitimate interest in prioritising films and preventing abuse. Request counts are public; voter identifiers are not.
• Contact: Your name, email address, and message are used to receive and answer your inquiry, based on our legitimate interest in communicating with visitors. These fields are required to use the contact form; you can email us instead. Avoid including sensitive information or other people’s personal data.
• Technical and security information: Requests expose information such as IP addresses, browser details, requested URLs, and request times to the infrastructure serving the site. We use technical logs and temporary rate limits to operate the service, diagnose failures, and prevent abuse, based on our legitimate interest in a reliable website.
• Audience measurement: We use Umami Cloud’s default analytics to understand site usage through page views, referring pages, browser/device details, and approximate country information. Umami describes these analytics as cookie-free and anonymised, without cross-site tracking or raw IP addresses stored in analytics records. Its servers receive connection information to process requests. Where that technical processing involves personal data, we rely on our legitimate interest in understanding and improving the website. We do not send your account name, email address, or account ID to Umami.

You can browse without an account. Google sign-in is required to submit contributions and manage a profile. We do not sell personal data, use it for advertising, or send marketing emails. We do not use automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

3. What is public

Approved timestamps, descriptions, severity, and contribution attribution are public on the site and through its public API where exposed. Your display name and contribution totals can appear in contributor lists. Your Google profile image is hidden from public contributor lists by default; you can choose to show it in your profile settings. Your email, sign-in tokens, session information, pending submissions, and private moderation records are not made public.

Published pages may be indexed by search engines or copied by visitors. Do not put private information in your display name or contribution descriptions. Account deletion cannot remove copies held independently by others.

4. Hosting and external services

• Hetzner: The application, PostgreSQL database, and timestamp backups are hosted on a VPS in Germany supplied by Hetzner Online GmbH. See Hetzner’s privacy policy.
• Cloudflare: Traffic to our website passes through Cloudflare’s reverse proxy/CDN. Cloudflare processes request and connection information to deliver and cache content. We do not use Cloudflare Web Analytics or Turnstile. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
• Google: Google handles sign-in under its own account rules and supplies the profile information described above. We do not receive your Google password. See Google’s privacy policy.
• Umami Cloud: Default audience measurement is hosted by Umami, separately from our German VPS. See Umami’s privacy policy and analytics documentation.
• Resend: The contact form sends your name, email address, and message through Resend to our contact mailbox. Messages are accessible to the project operators and the services delivering and storing that correspondence. See Resend’s privacy policy.
• TMDB and images: Our server requests film metadata from The Movie Database without sending your account details. Movie images and profile images may involve requests to TMDB or Google image services, depending on how they are served. Direct browser requests reveal connection information to that provider. See TMDB’s privacy policy.
• ScaryMeter: On movie pages, your browser requests the film’s rating directly from ScaryMeter. ScaryMeter receives the movie identifier and connection information such as your IP address and browser details. We do not send your account details. Following its links takes you to its own website.
• Ko-fi: Donations are optional and handled on Ko-fi’s external website. We do not collect payment card details on WhenJumpScare. When you follow the donation link, Ko-fi and its payment providers apply their own terms and privacy practices. Ko-fi or its payment providers may share your name, email, donation amount, transaction information, and message with the operators. We use this information to administer support and answer donation inquiries, based on our legitimate interest in managing voluntary support, and retain records where legally required. See Ko-fi’s privacy policy.

Personal data is accessible to the operators and service providers as needed to run the project. We may also disclose information where required by a lawful request or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

5. Cookies, browser storage, and analytics

Essential authentication cookies maintain sign-in and protect the authentication flow. The session cookie normally lasts up to seven days and can be renewed while you use the site. When a visitor without an account requests movie data, the wjs_voter cookie stores a random identifier for up to one year to prevent duplicate requests and allow withdrawal.

Local storage remembers requested movies until changed or cleared. The watch-along tool uses session storage to remember timer progress for the current browser session. Blog editors may have draft text saved locally for recovery until cleared. These functional storage uses are separate from Umami’s cookie-free analytics.

Umami’s default analytics load when you visit the website without a consent banner. We use them for audience measurement, without custom account identifiers or session replay. Umami states that this default use does not require a cookie consent banner; see its privacy and consent FAQ. Analytics do not set tracking cookies or save an analytics consent preference in your browser. You can block requests to Umami through your browser’s content-blocking tools.

You can also block cookies in your browser, although sign-in and movie-request features may then stop working.

6. Retention and account deletion

Account information is retained while your account exists. Deleting it from your profile removes your name, email, profile image, provider tokens, sign-in links, sessions, and pending submissions from the active application records. Published timestamps remain attributed to “Deleted user”. An internal placeholder record remains to preserve contribution relationships; rejected-submission records are detached from your contributor account.

At present, we have no scheduled deletion period for technical/server logs, contact correspondence, moderation records, or movie data requests. Account deletion does not automatically delete those separate records. Contact us to request their erasure; applicable exceptions may permit or require retention. Temporary rate-limit entries stop being used when their short blocking/window period expires and are held in a bounded in-memory store.

Timestamp-only backups and their metadata are kept indefinitely in Germany. These are not full account or session database backups. Published contribution records also remain unless removed. If a description or retained metadata contains personal information, an erasure request needs to cover those copies as well.

We do not currently schedule analytics deletion ourselves. Umami Cloud’s own retention limits depend on the subscribed plan, so analytics may be deleted by the provider earlier. Other external providers apply their own retention rules to their service records.

7. Your data protection rights

Where applicable, you may request access, correction, erasure, restriction of processing, and data portability. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests. Where we rely on consent for any processing, you may withdraw that consent at any time. These rights are subject to the conditions and exceptions in applicable law.

Send requests to [email protected]. We may ask for information reasonably needed to verify your identity. We normally respond within one month; where the law permits an extension, we will explain it within that period. You can lodge a complaint with CNIL in France or your local data protection authority.

8. International processing and security

Hosting the application in Germany does not mean all processing stays there. Cloudflare, Google, Umami Cloud, Resend, and services you visit through external links may process data outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Their contractual arrangements describe applicable transfer mechanisms, such as standard contractual clauses or other recognised safeguards. You can contact us for information about the arrangements applicable to your data.

The site uses HTTPS, authentication, and access controls. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Young users

The site discusses horror films and may include spoilers and descriptions of violence. We do not collect dates of birth or independently verify age. Google is the only sign-in provider, but a Google account is not proof of age. Its minimum age rules vary by country, and supervised accounts have separate rules. Young users should follow applicable account rules and obtain parental involvement or consent where required by law. Contact us if you believe a child’s data has been collected without the necessary authorisation.

10. Changes and contact

We update the fixed date on this page when this policy changes. We will draw attention to material changes on the site and seek fresh consent where required for a changed optional use. For questions, privacy requests, or concerns, email [email protected].